We are pleased to announce that fiction writer and New England Review contributor T. L. Khleif will receive a 2014 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, which is given annually to six writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Rona Jaffe Awards have helped many women build successful writing careers by offering encouragement and financial support at a critical time. The Awards are $30,000 each and will be presented to the six recipients on September 18th in New York City.
T. L. Khleif received a BA from Brown University, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she is a lecturer. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in New England Review and the Normal School, and she is the recipient of a MacDowell Colony fellowship. Ms. Khleif is working on a novel tentatively titled The Absence of Layla Halabi, and will use her Writer’s Award to take time off from teaching to focus on this novel full time.
In addition to T. L. Khleif, the 2014 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award recipients are Olivia Clare, Karen Hays, Danielle Jones-Pruett, Mara Naselli, and Solmaz Sharif. Congratulations to them all from New England Review.
Celebrated novelist Rona Jaffe (1931-2005) established The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards program in 1995. It is the only national literary awards program of its kind dedicated to supporting women writers exclusively. Since the program began, the Foundation has awarded nearly $2 million to emergent women writers, including several who have gone on to critical acclaim, such as Elif Batuman, Eula Biss, Lan Samantha Chang, Rivka Galchen, Aryn Kyle, Rebecca Lee, ZZ Packer, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Tracy K. Smith, Mary Szybist, and Tiphanie Yanique.